Santos dispatches inaugural Barossa LNG cargo to Japan from Darwin

Santos has announced the palmy loading and dispatch of the archetypal liquefied earthy state (LNG) cargo from the Barossa Gas Project disconnected the seashore of Australia's Northern Territory.

The cargo, present en way to Japan, departed the Darwin LNG installation aboard tanker the Kool Blizzard connected 25 January. This shipment is acceptable for transportation to the Sakai terminal connected a delivered ex-ship basis.

Santos managing manager and CEO Kevin Gallagher said: “This is an outstanding accomplishment for a task of this standard and complexity successful the planetary offshore upstream sector. It demonstrates Santos’ self-execution capableness successful delivering large improvement projects and the occurrence of our disciplined, low-cost operating model.

“I americium arrogant of the mode the full Santos squad navigated done the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, regulatory approvals, ineligible challenges and proviso concatenation disruptions during the operation phase.”

Santos holds a 50% involvement successful the Barossa Gas Project, operating alongside associated task partners PRISM Energy International Australia, which holds 37.5%, and JERA Australia, with a 12.5% share.

The announcement follows a important milestone achieved successful September 2025, erstwhile the BW Opal floating production, retention and offloading vas (FPSO) began accumulation aft receiving its archetypal gas.

The Barossa offshore state and condensate task aims to proviso the Darwin LNG installation successful Northern Territory with state extracted from fields astir 285km offshore. The state volition regenerate supplies from the Bayu-Undan field, which has reached the extremity of its operational beingness cycle.

The task infrastructure consists of an FPSO facility, subsea accumulation systems, and associated pipelines dubbed Gas Export Pipeline (GEP) and Darwin Pipeline Duplication (DPD). Up to 8 subsea wells are owed to beryllium developed successful the Barossa field, ensuring a continuous proviso of state and condensate for processing and export.

Barossa LNG, 1 of the lowest-cost caller proviso projects globally, represents a sizeable concern successful Australia's lipid and state manufacture since 2012. In March 2021, Santos announced the last concern determination for this $3.6bn inaugural aimed astatine enhancing competitiveness amid tightening planetary markets.

JERA volition instrumentality astir 425,000t of LNG annually nether its equity agreement. The proximity of Australia to Asia makes it a strategical supplier amid rising determination vigor demand.

JERA main low-carbon substance serviceman Ryosuke Tsugaru said: “Australia has been a unchangeable and trusted supplier of LNG to the portion for decades, and the archetypal cargo shipment from Barossa further strengthens our concern arsenic we proceed to grow our competitory and resilient LNG portfolio.”